


Why the Shore is Aflush with the Tide

by Wolf_of_Lilacs



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Imprisonment, M/M, Past Rituals, Politics, Post Deathly Hallows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-23 16:24:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18553426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolf_of_Lilacs/pseuds/Wolf_of_Lilacs
Summary: It's been a year since Voldemort's surrender, and things come to a head. Harry, naturally, is in the middle of it.





	Why the Shore is Aflush with the Tide

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SofiaBane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SofiaBane/gifts).



> The title comes from ["Why I Love Thee?"](https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/why-i-love-thee?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Poem-a-Day%20%20April%2020%202019&utm_content=Poem-a-Day%20%20April%2020%202019+CID_d1acd297d6c595a31440198dd4087084&utm_source=Email%20from%20Campaign%20Monitor&utm_term=Why%20I%20Love%20Thee) by Sadakichi Hartmann.
> 
> RedHorse betaed and was a much-needed sounding board. Thank you so much, for everything.❤❤

Of all the ways Voldemort had imagined his defeat (if he had deigned to think of it at all), this was not one of them.

 

The Chosen One’s house. The Chosen One’s mercy. The Chosen One’s insufferable…

 

“What’s the occasion?” he asked wearily, watching as Harry made breakfast with a spring in his step.

 

“The first day of spring.” Harry grinned at him. “The sun is shining—”

 

Voldemort glanced pointedly around the windowless basement kitchen.

 

“Oh come now, it will, later, and I can’t imagine anything going wrong today.”

 

“The narrowness of your imagination alarms me.”

 

All mornings were like this, a strange balance of convivial and hostile, never more than that.

 

A contract had been drawn up, of course, that left him as harmless as they could make him. It was a steep price to pay for his survival, but living this way was (untenable) better than any sort of death could be.

 

And, he had to admit, his own failure had brought him here.

 

“Anything good?” Harry squinted at the newspaper in Voldemort’s hand. Voldemort tossed it into the grate.

 

*

 

Harry and Voldemort took the Floo to the Ministry with their usual reticence, although anyone who attempted conversation while whirling through a series of fireplaces at outrageous speeds was in need of better ideas of excitement.

 

 

When they arrived, Voldemort went off with his Auror escort without a fuss. (He’d acceded to this, after all.) Harry often worried something would go wrong at the start of the day, but in the last year nothing much had happened to confirm his unease.

 

And he felt, watching Voldemort’s figure recede into the crowd, that there should have been a response to this thought, but as always, there was nothing.

 

“Morning, mate.” Ron, hair tousled and still wet, came bounding into Harry’s cubicle, squeezing in next to Harry’s parchment-strewn desk and Puddlemere United posters.

 

“Hi.” Harry dropped the quill he’d been chewing on out of sight behind his inkwell. “What’s up?”

 

“Hermione and I have news.” At Harry’s alarmed expression, he laughed. “Nothing huge, mate, really. Come to lunch with us at—” he pulled a scrap of parchment out of his pocket. “Bloody hell, can’t read my own handwriting.” He wadded up the parchment again and lobbed it at Harry’s wastebasket, which accepted it with a disconcertingly loud crunching sound. They both eyed it askance. “Well anyway, that Muggle pub a bit outside Diagon Alley. The one with the weird art Hermione likes so much. And the…history and stuff. I don’t know. You know what I’m talking about, right?”

 

“Yeah,” Harry replied, grinning at Ron’s hangdog expression. “I’ll be there. Noon?”

 

“Yeah, or, dunno, when you can get off. If Proudfoot’s not an arse.” Ron wandered off down the corridor, attempting to whistle what sounded like a wartime ballad… It was hard to tell.

 

Harry caught one of the purple paper planes they still used—even after lobbying for enchanted parchments that had just gone on the market—and unfolded it. Even after a year of working here, memos made him nervous. Today’s, thankfully, was nothing special. A Kneazle had got stuck up a Pitching Pine, and they needed someone to get it down.

 

“Is this really in the job description?” Harry complained to Proudfoot, his senior partner.

 

“Pitching Pines are nothing to turn your nose up at,” Proudfoot said, shaking his head. “no one should be dealing with those. They’re a curse, plain and simple.”

 

“Ah, but it’s a Kneazle and—”

 

Proudfoot shook his head again, more vigorously, as the two of them prepared to Disapparate from the Atrium. “Kneazles and Pitching Pines are a terrible combination. World-ending, even. The Kneazle climbs up, the pine gets mad and starts throwing needles and cones and anything else, the Kneazle clings on, the pine can’t shake it off…” Proudfoot shuddered. “I hate Kneazles.”

 

This was not the job Harry had expected to be doing after the war. An unpleasant mix of boredom and thrill, and he wanted…more.

 

“Wait, Potter!”

 

Oh, for Christ’s sake.

 

Kingsley’s secretary (not to be confused with the newly-promoted undersecretary, Percy) raced toward them, out of breath, mopping sweat from her brow. Penelope Clearwater. Harry tried to smile at her. Proudfoot walked several feet away to give them something like privacy.

 

“He won’t cast today,” she said. “He says there’s no point to it.”

 

That didn’t sound like something Voldemort would actually say. “What won’t he do?” Harry asked, heart sinking. And to think, he’d thought today would be brill.

 

“Routine magic. Threw his wand aside, crossed his arms all petulant-like, acts like we’re the problem for having him do this. Ungrateful, if you ask me,” she added in an undertone.

 

Well, of course. There was only one thing that they could reasonably demand of Voldemort, only one thing that he still possessed in spades. Only one thing that Voldemort was remotely willing to give.

 

And yet, now it seemed he was not.

 

“Did he say why?” Harry gazed upward at the swirling golden symbols of the ceiling, then glanced back at Clearwater to find her doing the same.

 

“Of course not.” Clearwater snorted, tossing one of her dark braids behind her ear. “He doesn’t talk much, far as I know. Not that anyone would care.”

 

Cowards, Harry thought, then reminded himself that no, not everyone was as stupidly unafraid of Voldemort as he himself seemed to be. “And they want me to talk to him.”

 

“Who else?”

 

“Go on ahead, I guess,” Harry muttered to Proudfoot. “I doubt I’ll catch up.” Proudfoot saluted, his mouth pinched in annoyance.

 

Harry followed Clearwater to the lift, where she jabbed the button for the third floor: Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. “Today’s project is there,” she explained as the lift rose, clanking. “He was supposed to help design an improved tracking spell for underage magic, and…well…he refused.” Took out half the lab equipment and terrified the researchers working with him.”

 

“Right.” Harry could feel nothing of Voldemort’s agitation, but this was to be expected since the muting of their bond. Harry searched for any residue of it, but as always, came up against a yawning emptiness. (It was best this way. Harry didn’t miss the connection. He _didn’t_.)

 

The lab was in shambles, papers and quills and bits of crystal and wood strewn everywhere. Harry couldn’t help but feel somewhat impressed. Voldemort had done all this without his wand? Although he held it still, passing it between long-nailed fingers, useless to him now as if it were no wand at all.

 

Voldemort stood peaceably in the room’s center. “Hello, Harry,” he said. “They’ve brought you to help clean up this mess, I suppose.”

 

The researchers—Gregson, Meaks, and Rousse—were nowhere to be seen. Only Robards was there, Voldemort’s assigned guard today. His face was scrunched into a ferocious scowl, which he treated Voldemort with periodically. “Hand over the wand,” he grunted, sounding as if he’d made the demand several times already. Voldemort rolled his eyes in Harry’s direction and held the wand out to Robards, handle-firstt. Robards snatched it, almost relieved.

 

“What happened, exactly?” Harry asked.

 

“Does it matter?” Clearwater protested behind him. “I already told you—”

 

Harry glared over his shoulder at her. “What the fuck?”

 

She closed her mouth, flushing.

 

“They wish to more reliably track underage magic,” Voldemort said “To what end, they did not say.” But he had a myriad of guesses, Harry suspected. He didn’t press, though. Voldemort wouldn’t talk here, purely out of spite.

 

“And, er, what were you trying to accomplish?” Clearwater and Robards narrowed their eyes and fidgeted in impatience. Harry ignored them.

 

“Exactly what I seem to have done.” Voldemort spread his hands, encompassing the chaos all around them.

 

Harry felt like there was something obvious he was missing here, but couldn’t quite—

 

“Underage magic tracking?” he repeated blankly. “Like the Trace?”

 

“Yes, Harry. The Trace, but more accurate still. More precise, I suppose, and able to be used on any magic user they please.”

 

Oh. Oh, well then. “I’ll, er, be back, shall I?” Harry turned his back on the protests of Clearwater and Robards and hurried to the lift.

 

*

 

“No one’s said anything about this,” Harry said, entering the Minister’s office without bothering to knock. Kingsley shuffled some paperwork off a chair and wordlessly offered him a cup of tea. “No thanks. I’m not here for a chat.”

 

“What are you on about, then?” Kingsley didn’t appear at all surprised to see him.

 

“The improved Trace!” Harry’s voice rose almost to a shout, and he took a few, steadying breaths. “They’re not doing it to help Muggle-raised children. They’re doing it to make it even easier to punish them—punish _anyone_ , even.”

 

Kingsley picked up a crumpled bit of purple parchment. “Oh, yes. Voldemort’s refusal to cast.” He shook his bald head. “Harry, this isn’t meant to punish anyone. It’s to make it easier to find Muggle-borns in need of help.”

 

“The Trace never helped me,” Harry said darkly. “Or him. He shouldn’t have to—"

 

Kingsley sighed and fished a sealed parchment from a drawer. He opened, skimmed through it, then passed it to Harry. “read that line.” He jabbed his finger at a spot halfway down the page. _Lord Voldemort, formerly Tom Marvolo Riddle, will give reparations in form of expertise as needed and magic as required for the betterment of Wizarding society._

 

“That’s exactly what I mean— “

 

“Let justice be,” Kingsley recommended. “Harry, really.”

 

“This isn’t justice,” Harry maintained.

 

“Harry—” Kingsley tried again.

 

“No. I don’t care what he’s done. No one benefits from this, least of all the people he’s supposedly giving back to.”

 

“It was the most lenient sentence we could give, under the circumstances, and Merlin knows it was hard enough convincing anyone it shouldn’t have been worse. If you think it should be revisited, by all means take it to the Wizengamot. I’m sure they’d be glad to see you.”

 

“Right. Thanks.” Harry sat his tea back on the desk, undrunk. “I guess that’s all, then.”

 

Kingsley gave a tight smile.

 

Harry stormed out past the undersecretary’s desk—empty—and left immediately for lunch. There was still a good half hour before noon, but he needed a break.

 

The pub was well-known, and fairly full with the professional lunchtime crowd. Harry found a table at the back, left his name at the bar, and ordered a pint. He nursed it slowly as he waited, the fingers of one hand tugging at his hair, his eyes cast upward.

 

Sometimes, he disagreed with Voldemort for the spirit of it. Not long after moving in to Grimmauld Place (which seemed particularly suited to house arrest), they’d gotten into an argument about whether Kreacher should stay or continue on at Hogwarts. Voldemort didn’t like house-elves, Kreacher didn’t like Voldemort but didn’t wish to leave the house again, and Harry, riddled with guilt, let Kreacher stay. He couldn’t cave to Voldemort so soon, he felt.

 

No one was happy about the arrangement, but that had never been the point.

 

The first pint was gone too quickly, and Harry ordered a second. There was still a quarter hour to go.

 

Ron and Hermione found him doodling on a napkin. “What’s that supposed to be?” Ron asked, peering over Harry’s shoulder at the wobbly stick figure.

 

“No idea. Abstract.”

 

“That’s not abstract,” Hermione snorted. “That’s quite an accurate rendering of Kingsley. What happened?”

 

“You didn’t hear about it?” Harry stuffed the napkin out of sight.

 

“Of course I did.” Hermione sat across from him, with Ron taking the spot to his left. “Wanted to hear it from you.” Her smile was taut, as it so often was when they met.

 

“They want him to contribute to a new Trace.” Harry, realizing suddenly how hungry he was, eyed Ron’s and Hermione’s plates.

 

“I’ll go and order something,” Ron muttered and darted off.

 

“I thought it didn’t matter what they asked him to help cast? He has no choice but to comply. It’s part of the bargain, no?”

 

“Yeah, but it was supposed to be for ‘the betterment of society’, and a new Trace wouldn’t be, he believes.”

 

Ron came back, rather sooner than expected, just in time to catch Harry’s “and I agree with him”.

 

Hermione’s eyebrow twitched violently, but she nodded.

 

 “Mate, are you mental?” Ron set Harry’s plate in front of him with a clatter and nearly knocked over his chair as he pulled it out. “It’s not worth making any more enemies over defending him.”

 

“Ron,” Hermione chided halfheartedly. “He isn’t wrong, really. Not many studies have been done, but the one they’re basing this new Trace off encouraged the opposite, essentially.” She raised her hand for a refill of water, took several sips, and went on. “Muggle-born children are often ignored, even when their Traces are activated because of magic cast in self-defense. And, given that they’re eliminating the age limit on this Trace altogether, there are a lot of possibilities for misuse.”

 

“So, you agree with him.”

 

“On this one thing,” she huffed. “Harry, I—” She cut herself off. The unspoken words hung about them.

 

“I’m not going to keep quiet about this,” Harry decided.

 

“Hmm,” Hermione said. “I don’t think that will win you any friends.”

 

“In better news,” Ron said loudly, “we have an important announcement.”

 

Harry shifted, glancing at Hermione. “Is one of you—”

 

“Pregnant? No.” Hermione snorted. “We got another cat. Crookshanks enjoys the company.” She pulled a photograph from her handbag to show a tuxedo-patterned kitten, wide golden eyes darting from side to side, whiskers twitching. “What a handful. She got out this morning, and we’ve no idea where she went.”

 

“This one’s just a kitten. All kinds of opportunities to train her up a bit.” Ron grinned. “She’s a Kneazle,” he added reassuringly. “They always come back.”

 

Harry blinked. “Well, congratulations, then.”

 

“Thank you. We haven’t spent much time together lately, and we thought this was the perfect excuse.” Hermione’s smile was strained with worry, and she chewed her lip.

 

Harry smiled back as best he could.

 

He wasn’t entirely sure how he got home. The rest of the day was a bit of a haze as Proudfoot told him in vivid detail about the Kneazle he’d missed. “Little black and white fellow. Probably a half-breed, since it wasn’t solid colored. I had to fly to get it. It’s been years since I played Quidditch and let me tell you, dodging that nonsense was not easy…”

 

“But it all worked out okay?”

 

“Sure did.” Proudfoot beamed. “Kneazle is safe and sound, back with its owner—your friends, if you want to know. I’m so glad about the new tagging system we’ve got. Hasn’t failed once.”

 

And so on in that vain.

 

He met Voldemort and his Auror guard in the Atrium near the Floo. “Be here tomorrow as usual,” they were told. “We’ll deal with the consequences then.”

 

“I can’t wait,” Voldemort said, smiling without any teeth. He took Harry by the arm and, in a show of gentlemanly deference, escorted him to the Floo.

 

*

 

Harry wrenched his arm free of Voldemort’s grip as soon as they emerged in the shadowy kitchen. He hated when they touched; it was an awful, empty sort of feeling, with neither pain nor even the warmth of give of another person’s hand. It made him sick.

 

“All heroic, aren’t you, Harry?” Voldemort tilted his head, his thin lips twisting into a smirk. “Truly, I shouldn’t feel so important, not when measured against whatever else you could choose to speak out against.”

 

“Oh fuck off.” Harry left him at the base of the stairs and stomped his way past Kreacher, skulking behind the new, wooden umbrella stand (the troll’s leg had to go because it reminded Voldemort of “a time in my life I endeavor to forget”), apparently still not having forgiven Harry for preparing breakfast. Or for Voldemort. Frankly Kreacher was quite put out with Harry, and had been ever since they had acquired their permanent houseguest. He closed himself in his room—Regulus’s old room, with its quaint, sad charm—and wallowed in his loneliness.

 

But he was bad at wallowing and being alone, so hours later found him traipsing back downstairs with a bottle of firewhiskey he’d received for Christmas from Bill and Fleur.

 

In hindsight, he should have stayed upstairs.

 

“I really shouldn’t be encouraging this,” Voldemort mused as Harry poured them both generous glasses. “But they demand my magic and my guilt, and what better things do I have to do?”

 

“Hell if I know.” Harry took a swig, then coughed. “Jesus, they didn’t skimp on this one.”

 

Voldemort drank his a bit more sedately. “You could always leave, you know.”

 

“And do what? Go where?” Harry drank a bit more, finishing his glass and pouring a second. “I’m persona non grata literally everywhere. No one wants anything to do with a fallen hero, tainted by his enemy, giving shelter and a purpose to his enemy…”

 

“Oh, do go on. I enjoy a litany of your misdeeds.”

 

“Couldn’t just let them cart you off and put you in Azkaban,” Harry continued with relish. “No, had to give you proper terms of surrender. Fucking demanded it.”

 

“You’re sweet. I thank my lucky stars every day.”

 

More drinks. More inanities.

 

“Robards is about as ambitious as frog—”

 

“Have you ever talked to a frog? They might have hidden depths.”

 

Harry choked. “Do people talk to frogs? Is there frog Parseltongue?”

 

“I have no idea.” Voldemort’s gaze was unfixed, or it likely was, given that Harry was sprawled across the table with his face pressed into the wood, his empty glass inches from his hand.

 

“I fucking hate you.” Harry sat up and weaved over close to Voldemort, thrusting his face too close. “I fucking hate you for everything you’ve ever put me through.” And, bold and brash as any Gryffindor ever was, and fueled by potent firewhiskey from the heart of the country of the language of love, he kissed Voldemort full on the mouth.

 

And kept kissing him.

 

It was all rather messy. Voldemort, as surprised as Harry was, grasped Harry about the back of the neck for balance, and succeeded only in knocking over the chair with a clatter that startled them both so badly that they could only cling to each other all the more.

 

It stirred at the place where the connection had once been, a scab being picked at but too thick to dislodge. Voldemort’s nails scratched at the back of Harry’s neck; Harry bit Voldemort’s bottom lip in his enthusiasm; and Kreacher popped in at the sound of the falling chair, gave a horrified squawk, and popped right back out.

 

This was enough to end the moment. They broke apart, rolling away from each other across the hard stone floor. “What?” Harry muttered.

 

Voldemort, meanwhile, was staggering back to his feet and pouring another glass. His eyes were oddly bright. “I failed to kill you, for this?” He drank it down in one.

 

“What do you mean?” Harry wondered, bleary.

 

Voldemort didn’t bother to reply.

 

*

 

Taking the Floo while hungover was, in Harry’s opinion, utter hell. When he’d asked Kreacher if they had any Hangover Brew, Kreacher had blinked at him, shook his head with his ears pressed flat to his head, and walked away. “You can go to Hogwarts, if you want,” Harry called after him, but Kreacher glared through bloodshot eyes over his shoulder and Disapparated with an exceptionally loud crack, which only made Harry’s headache worse.

 

Anyway, the Floo was loud and the spinning made Harry want to vomit. Voldemort, just behind him, clutched the back of his robes, hissing oaths in Parseltongue that became progressively worse as the interminable journey continued.

 

When they were at last spat out in the Atrium and stood to brush the soot off their robes, they were greeted with utter silence. “You are under arrest for sedition, consorting with an enemy of the state—”

 

“Prisoner, not enemy. Who the fuck wrote these charges—”

 

“Quiet!” Robards hissed, then returned to his parchment. “And interference with justice…Merlin, Potter. You’ve been busy.”

 

“Wait.” Harry tried to back away, but Williamson and another Auror he didn’t know snapped cuffs on his wrists before he could get anywhere. He thrashed, watched in rage as he was pushed past a gaping crowd.

 

“No, damn, how…” Harry thought he felt hand brush his hip, dip into the pocket where he kept his Cloak, but in all the noise he couldn’t be quite sure.

 

“Damn it, you idiots!”

 

Harry could see no sign of Voldemort, and wondered vaguely as a Lethargy Spell was cast on him if they’d lost him in the chaos. He almost hoped they had.

 

*

 

Harry had toured Azkaban not longer after joining the Aurors. They’d shown him the maximum security cells down in a sunken pit accessible only by a steep, narrow flight of stairs that Harry could not imagine Sirius clambering up as a dog. They showed him the cavern—reeking of rot and misery—where the Dementors spent their time when not ghosting about. They showed him the supposedly minimum security cells for brief stints, as his was to be “for now” his arresting Auror grumbled, his tone suggesting he thought the sentence was far too light. “But maybe I’ll get lucky and they’ll forget about you.”

 

“Where is Vold—” Harry tried.

 

“Not your concern.” The Auror wouldn’t meet his eyes, and Harry wondered if he even knew at all.

 

Harry’s cell was small and bare, a thin cot in one corner, a basin in the other. “Cozy,” he noted.

 

“Compared to downstairs? You bet it is.” The Auror left without a backward glance, the slam of Harry’s cell door too loud in the narrow hall.

 

There were other prisoners on either side of him, Harry knew. He’d seen them outside. But with the door closed, he may as well have been alone. And _this_ was minimum punishment?

 

Lonely…

 

He felt the spot where the bond should have been more acutely than ever. He shied away from it, or tried to, but the more he thought about it, the more the silence pressed in around him, the more persistent its presence (absence) became.

 

And then the Dementors arrived.

 

They floated close to the door, scabbed, rotting hands clutching at the bars. Harry curled in the back corner, as far as he could get from them, but their putrid stench was inescapable. They hovered, and Harry remembered panic panic panic of being alone and not dying and— he fainted into memory, worse than it had ever been.

 

_Voldemort stalks toward him in the Great Hall, his expression writhing between horror and rage, the gold light of the newly risen sun playing starkly against his pallid skin. “You did not die,” he spits. “You…”_

_“Your curse wasn’t strong enough,” Harry tells him, still in horrified shock himself, his scar ablaze with Voldemort’s rage and fear, and his vision doubles, for he seems himself and Voldemort, and he cannot find his way back into his own head. “You didn’t want to kill me. You failed.”_

_“No,” Voldemort hisses. “Lord Voldemort does not fail at—” Harry has never seen him so utterly speechless like this. His hands shake. “You are my—"_

_And then Voldemort is grasping Harry from behind, arms slung about his chest. “Harry Potter carries a piece of my soul. Would you kill him, knowing what he is to me?” he goads. Harry can feel him trembling. Harry raises his head, meets Hermione’s eye, and is certain she understands. Hermione steps forward, wand in hand, her eyes sparkling with tears._

_“Reduc—” she begins, her wand pointing squarely at Harry’s chest, and Voldemort drags Harry to the floor to avoid it. Then he stands, hands held out, empty._

_“I surrender,” he says, “and I expect to be treated accordingly.”_

 

*

 

Hermione and Ron visited him. Their patroni prowled behind them, brightening the dreary corridor. “You look awful, mate,” Ron said.

 

“I feel like shite,” Harry agreed mildly.

 

“Kingsley is furious,” Hermione told him grimly, “but his hands are tied. Consorting with the enemy isn’t a charge that can be thrown out. You could be here for a while, considering how little the Wizengamot wants to review anything of yours.”

 

“Fuck them.”

 

“And since Voldemort is missing, well, they want to let you out even less.”

 

“I…this is torture. I can’t stay here and—” But he’d stay here forever. There’s no way out, no way out.

 

Hermione nodded to herself. “We’ll get you out.” She whispered it, her lips hardly moving, in case a passing guard or Auror overheard.

 

When they left, Harry could hold onto the knowledge that they were still there for him, could remember the warmth of their Patroni, and maybe it helped. He didn’t know.

 

*

 

“Breakfast, Potter.” A tray was thrust through a wider gap between the bars, and Harry took it, remembering the long summer days when food came through a cat flap.

 

The glop in the bowl purported to be porridge, but to Harry the texture resembled phlegm. He put it aside, tried a sip of water to wash out the slimy residue, and set that aside, too.

 

The empty hours between meals and Dementor visits—two of each per day—were meant for bitter contemplation, and Harry took full advantage.

 

The surrender had led to months of distrust, where celebrations were muted by the knowledge of Voldemort’s survival, of Harry’s betrayal—according to some. It was not the end to the war Harry had wanted, but he had never known what he wanted, had he? Never done anything except what he felt he must. “Make him give back,” he’d said, “instead of throwing him in Azkaban. Who would that help?”

 

The price was a limitation of what magic Voldemort could perform, and the blocking of the bond. It hadn't seemed too high, at the time.

 

*

 

It was absurdly simple to evade the Ministry’s search parties. He nipped into a fireplace behind a maintenance wizard, Harry’s Cloak wrapped about his shoulders. No one noticed. Luckily for him, they couldn’t make their new Trace without him, for the moment.

 

Holed up across the street from Grimmauld, Voldemort paced. He should be relieved. The mark of his _failure_ —even if he is also the bearer of his soul—was locked away. He could move on, live within his contract…

 

No. No, he would have to return, perhaps to face harsher punishment, for the contract demanded his magic as it was requested. If he did not return, he stood to lose whatever magic he had left, wand or no wand.

 

Ah, there they were. An Auror—Harry’s partner, if he wasn’t mistaken—and several hit wizards traipsed from the direction of King’s Cross. He crept past them; they noticed nothing.

 

He had been reduced to…this. Wandering under an Invisibility Cloak, he was almost a wraith once more, for all the good it did him.

 

Harry was where he ought to be, and he should be content. And yet all he could remember was their drunken snogging and the feel of the connection, stirring after so long closed. Voldemort wanted _more_ , wanted to make the boy he could never kill into…

 

What?

 

The not-knowing was enough to drive him onward.

 

“Help me.” Granger was stepping out her front door to take a late afternoon stroll, her hair tied back. She started badly and drew her wand, peering about with narrowed eyes.

 

“You,” she spat, catching sight of him, crouched in the bushes (how demeaning). “What do you want?”

 

“Many things.” He stood, hands palm up, and approached her the way he might have approached a wary cat. “But in this, I believe we may be in accord.”

 

“Aren’t you supposed to be locked up somewhere? Away from Harry?”

 

“I don’t have time for such things. Do you want your dear friend to be free or not? They have no intention of trying him.”

 

Granger huffed. “You think I don’t know that? What do you want from me?”

 

“I need a research partner,” he admitted. “As it stands, I have no access to most of my magic unless I am casting for them. My wand is useless to me. And, of course—”

 

“The connection between you and Harry is exactly as it should be,” she interrupted. “I’m not helping you if it means reopening it.”

 

“But we both need it,” he hissed.

 

“And if I help you?” A little black-and-white kitten padded out after her, and nuzzled against Voldemort’s leg, purring. Granger made a noise of protest, but subsided to watch. The kitten plopped down near his foot, peering up at him with soft golden eyes. “Mrrr,” it said wisely.

 

“Helping me break this ritual will help him,” he said. “I will free him.”

 

“But not from you,” she sighed. More at ease now that the kitten had given her approval, Granger led him inside.

 

She dropped all pretense when the door was closed. “If we don’t restore your connection, then he’s got nothing but Dementors for company, and they’re terrible for him.”

 

There were pictures of Harry with both Hermione and the Weasley boy all over the room, some where they had their arms thrown about each other, some there they stood side by side, waving happily out at their surroundings. Voldemort felt quite out of place, for when had he ever seen Harry this way?

 

“Glad you see it my way,” he said, surprised. The cat rubbed against his leg, mewing for more attention. He obliged, scratching her under the chin.

 

Hermione snorted and Summoned an old, cracked leather volume from the overflowing shelf in the corner of the cluttered sitting room. “I’ve already found what we need to break it. The only thing we’re missing is Harry’s blood, and Ron and I were too closely watched when we visited to get it.”

 

Voldemort smirked, satisfied as she tensed. “Azkaban isn’t difficult to enter discreetly.”

 

*

 

Where were Ron and Hermione? How long had it been? Harry remembered the betrayal in their eyes after the surrender… It had been betrayal, right?

 

The dementor returned, closer, ever closer. Harry went under again, reliving more terrible things: the day the bond was blocked, where they had demanded substantial amounts of their blood (Harry’s blood, all of it) and had murmured words in a language older than Latin that Harry could not understand. How had they found the spell?

 

And when he was conscious, all he could think about were the ways in which nothing would ever change for the better.

 

“Harry, you’re in quite the predicament here, aren’t you?” Harry woke from a blessedly Dementor-free nightmare to find Voldemort peering in at him through the bars.

 

“How did you get in here?” he croaked. “Why are you here?”

 

“To see, of course. We haven’t been apart for any significant amount of time for a year, and I found myself missing the routine of it.”

 

Harry didn’t know what to say to this—certainly not anything like “oh, how sweet of you” or “thanks”—so he settled for an incredulous look.

 

“The security on the outside is quite horrific,” Voldemort continued. “I confused a guard with an old trick, and here we are.”

 

“Great. I’m thrilled.” Harry turned away.

 

“I need something from you.” Voldemort said this without any particular feeling, his voice soft. Harry heard the swish of his robes as he stepped closer to the bars. “Something that will help us both.”

 

“I don’t know what you’re planning—” Giving Voldemort what he asked for never ended well, Harry thought. Look where he was now. “What do you need?”

 

“Blood, willingly given.”

 

And Harry was back in the ritual chamber, blood pouring from the gash he’d been ordered to make in his own arm. Voldemort, bound at his back, had done the same, and their blood mingled as it dripped onto the runes. And then…

 

“No, I won’t give it to you,” Harry snapped.

 

“Then I shall take my leave. I cannot linger here.”

 

“Wait!” Harry didn’t want to be left here with the Dementors and the stern-faced guard that dropped off his morning meal. “What do you need it for?”

 

“I thought you’d never ask.” Voldemort’s eyes glinted. “A ritual to reopen our connection and free my magic.”

 

“Why didn’t Ron and Hermione take it when they were here?” Harry asked suspiciously.

 

“Ah, poor timing,” Voldemort said, rueful. “Harry, what’s the worst I can do to you, harmless as I am?”

 

Plenty, Harry thought, if he cared enough to try. But it had to be better than this hell. “Fine,” he muttered at last, stretching a hand between the bars. Voldemort took it, his fingers cold yet gentle, and cut Harry’s wrist with a quick stroke of a miniscule blade. Harry sucked in a breath between clenched teeth, but the pain was gone almost immediately.

 

Voldemort patted Harry’s hand almost fondly as he caught a few drops of blood in a phial that he tucked into a pocket. “It won’t be long,” he whispered, and then was gone.

 

*

 

Harry didn’t know how many days had gone by, days in which he was not allowed visitors, when something changed. He felt it, wasn’t quite sure what he felt.

 

He saw. Didn’t see. Hears a distant movement, a swish of robes. But there is no one.

 

When he closed his eyes, he was somewhere else, but there was no dementor to bring on the memories.

 

_Harry._

 

Impossible, he protested. The block was stronger than ever. He shouldn’t hear this, unless he was going mad. He must be going mad.

 

_Stop that! Harry!_

 

Sights and sounds bombarded him: the smell of parchment, the silky feather of an eagle quill between his fingers, pain in his left forearm. What, Harry thought. What? How?

 

_Later. We will come for you, soon._

 

_When?_

 

_Soon enough, you and I will be fugitives, Harry. For that, I can’t wait._

 

Harry went to sleep, still certain he imagined the entire thing.

 

But when next he woke, he had to reevaluate this conclusion, for instead of Dementors outside his cell, it was Voldemort again, and this time, Harry _felt_ it.

 

He didn’t look like Voldemort. He wore the gray trousers and coat of one of the guards. “They’ve decided to move you,” he said by way of greeting. “This cell isn’t…appropriate.”

 

“Of course.” Harry scrambled to his feet as the door swung outward at a tap of the key charm. Everything swayed, and, despite his best efforts, he stumbled out of his cell and into a surprised Voldemort’s chest. “Dementors do that to you,” he muttered. “You know.”

 

Voldemort tsk-ed and bound Harry’s hands for the appearance of it, then supported him the rest of the way down the corridor.

 

Past locked cells, out into the cavernous entry with guttering torches and dripping water, down the ladder (nearly impossible without the use of his hands, therefore Voldemort let the spell fade), and into a waiting boat. A cat perched on the prow, mewing in excitement as it caught sight of them.

 

“This is Medea.” Voldemort stepped aboard, Harry following gingerly. “Your friends’ new cat, incidentally, that insisted upon following me.”

 

The Kneazle that had gone up the tree on the day all of this had begun. Harry reached out and scratched Medea behind the ears. She thudded her head into his hand, trilling in contentment.

 

It was cold as they floated through the iron-gray waters, Azkaban hulking on the horizon at their backs. Harry shivered. Voldemort passed him a blanket, then went back to directing the boat’s progress, Medea watching the water as intently as if she, too, were piloting.

 

They made landfall far from the port, leaving the boat to drift, “they may find it eventually. I don’t much care.” Voldemort wrapped his cloak about his shoulders and walked stiffly up the rocky shore, Harry stumbling after.

 

“I can’t—” Harry started as a wave of hunger and tiredness washed over him, and he nearly lost his footing. Voldemort came back to him with a cluck of his tongue and steadied him before he fell.

 

His touch was a warmth deep to Harry’s chest. He pressed closer involuntarily, and Voldemort did not retreat.

 

They had only one wand between them. “Mine would have been too difficult to retrieve, thus I have had to use yours,” Voldemort said apologetically.

 

“How has it worked for you?” He thought of the other wand he possessed, hidden away in Dumbledore’s tomb. It would never be Voldemort’s now, for his contract of surrender forbade it.

 

Voldemort must have caught the thought, for Harry felt the briefest stirring of hunger. “Better than I expected. Perhaps it reflects its master’s desires.” Voldemort smirked.

 

Harry ignored him.

 

They set up a tent, the smaller of the two that they’d used at the Quidditch World Cup five years ago, still smelling just as strongly of cats. Medea padded about, mewing to herself and rubbing up against all the furniture. Voldemort watched her, eyes oddly soft.

 

“How did she come to be with you?” Harry almost hated to break the peaceable quiet, but the incongruity of the image was too much for him to wrap his mind around.

 

“She invited herself along, and I wouldn’t wish to offend your friends by killing her.” Voldemort stretched out a hand, and Medea nuzzled against it.

 

“That’s thoughtful of you.”

 

“You ought to rest.” Voldemort’s concern was palpable, almost choking in its intensity. And yet, Harry knew only too well, it had nothing to do with Harry himself.

 

“Stop that.” Voldemort’s voice was sharp, brittle. “I haven’t the time to attempt to understand if my apparent affection for you stems from the part of my soul you carry or something more, and I doubt it much matters.”

 

Medea scampered out of Harry’s way as he got to his feet and approached Voldemort with intent he didn’t quite want. “I’ve tried to do the best I could,” he said. “I thought we could both live, and somehow things would get better, because what good is more death. But now I’m pretty much an Undesirable again, with you, and what am I supposed to do?”

 

Voldemort didn’t answer, except to kiss him.

 

With their connection opened, it was nothing like the last, firewhiskey-marinated time. There was no scab to pick at, no nausea, no emptiness. This kiss was…everything, warmth blossoming between them, a new universe of possibility. Harry didn’t pull away. He had no need to.

 

Voldemort’s cool hand tangled in his hair. Harry’s hands played up Voldemort’s spine, vertebrae by vertebrae. The cold earth smell—or was it stone, or the Hogwarts dungeons—filled his nose.

 

And then they were undoing each other’s clothing, their thoughts a tangle of _mine_ and _I hate you_ and _don’t leave me_ and…

 

Medea cut the moment short by leaping on Harry’s back.

 

“Jesus!” He gingerly brushed her away. Voldemort laughed, and it wasn’t a terrible sound.


End file.
